I passed again through Delft, and visited the church1 in which was the monument of Prince William of Nassau,—the first of the Williams, and savior (as they call him) of their liberty, which cost him his life by a vile assassination2. It is a piece of rare art, consisting of several figures, as big as the life, in copper.

Family in the Nieuwe Kerk with the monument of Willem the Silent, by Dirk van Delen, 1645

There is in the same place a magnificent tomb of his son and successor, Maurice. The senate-house hath a very stately portico, supported with choice columns of black marble, as I remember, of one entire stone. Within, there hangs a weighty vessel of wood, not unlike a butter-churn, which the adventurous woman that hath two husbands at one time is to wear on her shoulders, her head peeping out at the top only, and so led about the town, as a penance for her incontinence.

[William I. the Silent, Prince of Orange, 1533-1584, was
shot (July 10) in the Prinsenhof at Delft (now the William of
Orange Museum) by Balthasar Gerards, a Burgundian agent of
Philip II. of Spain. His monument, by Hendrik de Keyser, is in
the Nieuwe Kerk.] –AD.↩